It's been almost a year since the below article was published. I hope the wheels are still in motion for this project.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/real-estate/article60274.ece
DEREK RAYMAKER
From Friday's Globe and Mail
Published on Friday, Oct. 24, 2008 12:00AM EDT
Last updated on Friday, Mar. 13, 2009 10:40AM EDT
The layers upon layers of gilded luxury that drape Yorkville Avenue have come to symbolize wealth and opulence in Toronto. Over the past 10 years, developers have been busily snapping up every vacant space in the affluent shopping district between Charles Street and Yorkville Avenue, west of Avenue Road, to build suitably luxurious condominium suites that meld with the designer boutiques, jewellers and bistros.
What is surprising is how this deluge of pearls and Prada ends abruptly at Bay Street. You can pick out delicate pastries and gourmet-grade prosciutto in Pusateri's Fine Foods at Yorkville and Bay, but when you cross Bay Street and walk east, you are surrounded by shopping arcades and crumbling parking lots.
That is about to change, starting with the Four Seasons Private Residences on the corner of Yorkville Avenue and Bay on the site of a former parking lot. Since launching sales in the five-star hotel-condominium a year ago, Menkes Developments has sold 80 per cent of the suites, even though prices start at more than $1-million, or $1,400 a square foot - roughly three times the Toronto average.
Now, Oxford Properties is aiming to redevelop its Cumberland Terrace shopping mall one block south. It's currently home to hobby shops, discount electronics stores and basement food court. Oxford representatives freely admit that the commercial property, which it has owned since 1999, is a troubling eyesore.
The company wants to replace it with two glass condominium towers - 45 and 36 storeys - along with nine residential villas to be perched atop a street-level retail platform.
The upscale Holt Renfrew store, located on Bloor Street to the south, has expressed interest in expanding into the space as an anchor tenant. Other shops would open on to Cumberland Street as opposed to the indoor mall that currently exists.
No matter how you look at it, it's an ambitious undertaking at a time when developers - or more accurately, their bankers - might be considering reining in grand projects aimed at niche markets. Add to that some structural obstacles to construction just beneath the surface.
"The challenges of the site have made redevelopment a slow process," said John Filipetti, Oxford's vice-president of development. "The subway, technically, is very challenging. There is very little terra firma down there."
Bregman + Hamann Architects have been conscripted to design striking towers in a neighbourhood that is already a notch above the current standards of residential condo development, but also to accommodate the subway tunnel that runs directly underneath the site.
Mr. Filipetti says it could be 18 months before sales can be launched because it will take that long for the design, rezoning and site-plan approval process to play out.
"Optimistically, we're looking at a late 2009 [construction] start, maybe early 2010," he said.
It's far too early to lay out a price range, but Mr. Filipettis said that a good portion of the project - including the upper floors and the villa-style residences - will be aimed at the high end of the market.
"The villas are like houses, with their own terraces and courtyards, and will be targeted at the [super-luxury] market segment," he said.
Pulling the affluent, mixed-use communities of Yorkville east to Yonge Street has been a long-term goal for the city of Toronto, and Mr. Filipetti reports that municipal officials have been extremely helpful in stickhandling a rezoning application.
The design also will need to undergo a peer-review process to assess whether it is adding to the quality of life in the surrounding community.
Other market experts say that the Cumberland Terrace redevelopment will be watched closely not just because of its scale, but because of its design and engineering.
"The original Yonge and Bloor subway lines were never designed to accommodate buildings over them," said Barry Lyon, a leading marketing consultant for high-rise residential developments. "Oxford has had to come up with some creative engineering to bridge the tunnel."
But with Yorkville sites west of Bay extremely hard to come by after a decade-long building boom, the Prada crowd and those who wish to house them don't have much choice.
